Page images
PDF
EPUB

understood, might have constituted a somewhat more generous expression of a great truth, which is far from being really suppressed or disowned; on the other side, I must hold that everything which goes to emphasize very pre-eminently in 'priesthood,' still more to define 'priesthood' altogether by, the power offerre sacrificium' or 'offerre placabiles hostias pro vivis ac defunctis '—does tend directly, in spite of all denials, to separate unduly between the outward and the inward of priesthood, as well as (perhaps) between the priestly organ of the Body, and the Body of whose priestliness he is the organ; just as every assertion that the Eucharistic celebration on earth is a 'sacrificium proprium' and 'vere propitiatorium,' both 'pro fidelium vivorum peccatis, poenis, satisfactionibus et aliis necessitatibus,' and 'pro defunctis in Christo nondum ad plenum purgatis' does, in spite of all disclaimers, directly tend to an undue separation between the everrepeated sacrifice of the Eucharist and the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Now upon the general position which the last few pages have been trying to set forth I rather anticipate one or two comments, which it may be worth while to consider. It may be urged then that whilst it is perfectly true that the pastoral disposition is needed in Christian ministers. as well as the priestly character, and whilst it is obvious. enough that the Anglican Ordinal dwells with quite a new emphasis upon pastoral ideals, it is nevertheless a mistake to speak of the pastoral aspect as an aspect of priesthood, or to suppose that the fullest or most admirable. emphasis upon it would compensate for any defect in the priestly character, or constitute an answer of any relevancy to those who doubt whether Anglican ministers are, after all, really priests.' Thus it may be urged that the 'priest' language means one thing, and the 'pastoral' another; that both are good, both necessary; but that it is a confusion, in thought, of things which language

has historically kept distinct, to try to read the one into the other, or make them in any direct sense the same thing.

Now there is a certain truth in this plea. It is true that within the office of the Christian minister we do, both in language and thought, make a certain distinction between the 'priestly' and the 'pastoral' aspects. It is impossible not to speak in detail as I have repeatedly spoken above-of the 'priestly' or 'sacerdotal' in particular reference to certain specific functions. It is also true that no amount of emphasis upon the 'pastoral' character would confer 'priesthood,' if all those things were effectually set aside which have reference to the sacramental presentation of the Blood of the Atonement. It is certainly possible so to distinguish between priesthood and pastorate, as in continuing the second to deny and to drop the first. Nor, if the question rises whether this has been done or no, in any particular case, does it constitute any answer to argue that the 'priest' associations have ipso facto been maintained-or the loss of them compensated-by the extra emphasis upon pastoral care, unless the pastoral care has itself a very particular significance and method. The loss, or the maintenance, of that whole range of administrative prerogative which St. Clement would have summed up as the ' offering of the gifts' depends upon the abandonment, or the reverent conferring and use, of the Christian sacraments.

But though, in this sense, I admit that a particular aspect of the Christian ministry is that to which the peculiar associations of the words 'priest' and 'priesthood' specially belong, and though I claim that the ancient Church in so for as she called her ministers 'sacerdotes' or iepeîs, and the Church of England in her refusal to abandon the title 'priests' (by that time identified verbally with sacerdotes and iepeîs), did emphasize the truth that all the true associations of ancient priesthood had so far, through the High Priesthood of Jesus Christ, a direct place within the functions of Christian ministers, that the new office might rightly inherit the old name, and to deny

the admissibleness of the old name would involve a misunderstanding of the new office; yet it is to be remembered that it was only very gradually, and at a comparatively late time, that the sacerdotal title became the exclusive title of the second order of the ministry, and that, as it became so, there was, or ought to have been, a corresponding widening of the signification of the word. In the Apostolical Constitutions, in the 'Statuta antiqua' (Carthag. iv.), in the Missale Francorum, the Pontificals of Egbert and Dunstan, in the more ancient portions of the Sarum, and even (it may be added) of the modern Roman Celebratio Ordinum, the most natural and spontaneous title is 'presbyter.' If 'sacerdos' is also true sacerdos is certainly by no means the one and only title of the office. Now so long as 'priesthood' is a title of the 'presbyterate,' the connotation of the word may well be limited to that particular aspect which its own associations specially suggest; if the word 'priesthood' tends towards superseding 'presbyterate,' it does so because it is felt that there is a spiritual sense in which the 'priest' associations may not uninstructively constitute the dominant element in the thought of the office; but from the moment when it becomes, simply and exclusively, the one formal and official title of the office as such, it is necessary to insist that the word which designates the office must no longer be confined to any one-however dominant-aspect of the office, but must connote and contain whatever the office contains and means as a whole. Even on these grounds then it is only with considerable reserve that we can admit that the word priest' now has one meaning and 'pastor' another. It is, unhappily, true if the two aspects of one thing are wrongfully divorced. But while they remain what they ought to be, two aspects of one thing, it is, even as matter of words, not properly true. When the Church is clear that from the Apostles' times there have been 'these Orders of Ministers, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons'-or when she has constituted any one among us a Priest in the Church

of God'—what has she done? or what is the meaning of this title in her mouth? I must answer that the title of the whole office means the whole office, not a part of it. If priesthood were still a thing distinct from pastorate, then priesthood and pastorate ought to be separately conferred. But the Church ordains men to be' priests' -not 'priests,' and 'pastors'; even whilst, in ordaining them 'priests,' she stamps with so solemn an emphasis the 'pastoral' aspect of their 'priesthood 1.'

But this contention, though true, is not the whole truth. If the 'priest' associations become prominent in the title of the 'presbyteral' office, and to deny that' presbyter' does legitimately mean 'priest' would be to deny some fundamental truths in the Christian faith; yet the 'presbyteral' office must not so be explained as to mean nothing but the distinctively 'priest' associations,-not only because, for purposes of practical use and need, we require to have included in the ministry all the things which belong to pastoral care; but also because, as has been pleaded above, the conception even of the 'priest' functions themselves will become attenuated and externalized if they be not the outward of an inward; which inward will never have its complete development without involving the pastoral character. I do not say that the priest who merely celebrates is not a priest validly ordained. I am not discussing the question of 'validity.' But I do say that he who finds the whole meaning of his priesthood in the act of celebrating does not at all understand what Christian priesthood truly means; and that if any Church should teach that Christian priesthood simply meant this, she would teach the meaning of priesthood definitely amiss. The ' inwardness' of a true priesthood requires the dedication of the inner life to Godward; of which again a necessary aspect or corollary is dedication of self on behalf of 'the others'

1 In connexion with this thought, the verbal identity of 'priest' with 'presbyter' has its own significant suggestiveness.

2 Cp. Rom. xii. 1, 2,

-interceding for them, thinking for them, living for them, enduring for them. It is not that this 'for other-ness' will always take the same form. Plainly the priest who is permanently invalided may illustrate perfectly the priestly spirit in his intercession for his brethren, which is perhaps the directest correlative of his right to present before them their ceremonial offering.' It may be in preaching, or in writing; in counselling or teaching; in organizing or visiting; or just in maintaining an integrity, and, in love, suffering for doing so; in any average parochial sphere it will probably be in some measure of every one of these things but however opportunities and conditions may differ, some correlative measure there must be of the utterance of that inwardness which is as the breath of every priesthood that is not self-condemned as merely official and formal; and which, however indirectly, is itself already an illustration of the meaning of pastoral love. I do not think it is anything like a fanciful analogy to say that the perfect outward and the perfect inward, the ideal pastorate and ideal priesthood, are blended together as one indivisible reality in the words of St. John, ch. x., 'I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep.'

But there is another form which criticism may probably take. It may be admitted that external functions in themselves are merely formal and official things; that they are, in God's sight, unreal and only condemnatory, except there be in the officiants an inward corresponding to the outward; and that the inward, in priesthood, does contain much of the things which have been said. Nevertheless it may be urged that when we are engaged in distinguishing an office from not an office, we must needs. differentiate function from non-function in respect of its outward performances. It is a question of doing or not doing, of having a right or not having a right to do, certain things. The things done, as such, are external

« PreviousContinue »